Field of the Invention
The present disclosure is related to the medical field and, more particularly, to disposable syringes and connectors therefore used in the medical field in which all or part of the syringe and/or connector may be disposed of after a single use.
Description of Related Art
It is well known that syringes used in the medical field are typically disposable and are discarded after one use. These syringes usually comprise a barrel and a plunger mounted for reciprocal movement in the barrel, both parts usually being made of plastic material. Although disposable syringes are typically made by mass production methods, such as injection molding, such disposable syringes are relatively expensive due to the materials and precision involved in their manufacture.
Such disposable syringes typically include one or more fluid outlets and inlets that place the interior of the barrel of the syringe in fluid communication with one or more sources of treatment or testing fluids, with the patient for administering the fluids, and with one or more fluid waste containers. The inlets/outlets may be integrally formed with the barrel of the syringe and caps may be removably attached to the inlets/outlets for sterility. Typically, the caps and inlets/outlets are formed with a standard threaded luer or similar configuration to allow for connection of the inlet/outlet to a tubing element of a fluid set. However, such standard luer engagements require a technician or user to spend a good deal of time assembling the tubing elements, which may be long and unwieldy, to the inlets/outlets of the syringes, and possibly an even greater amount of time disassembling these engagements. This leads to greater preparation and turnaround times for every use of a fluid delivery system, and, thus, fewer overall uses of the fluid delivery system and its facilities. Further, manufacturing plastic components with threaded luer engagements leads to greater material costs since the cap or syringe must be molded with the threaded luer adapter integrally formed thereon. The cap and/or syringe are typically disposed of after a single use, leading to a higher cost per patient for use of the fluid delivery system.